Straight away I know it is this kind of day and I am that kind of me and I’m ready for it.

There are cars and trees. I feel better than OK. I can open.

It’s almost cold. It’s sunny. I can feel the energy from the street, from the people. The people are full of energy today. I am falling into sync with it. With them. Walking. Looking straight ahead. Walking into straight ahead.

I’m moving forward. Moving forward into this space.

There is me and there’s air.

I see a man. He’s walking too. There’s a siren. And a dog. Moving forward through this day. Me too. Pushing through. Striding into next. With the dog and the man and feeling better than OK.

And seeing without looking. The rhythm of the day in my walk and in the sounds on the street and in the people.

It’s sunny. I’m cold. The energy is there on this street, coming from the people. Coming from the cars. They are falling into sync with me. I’m walking. Looking straight ahead. Walking into straight ahead. I’m being moved forward. Forward into this space.

There is air and there’s me and we join.

Breathing the man and his walk and no siren. Watching a girl and her phone. Watching her watch the pavement in the sun. Watching her move through this day.

If you can spare 3 full minutes to listen to this with your eyes closed, the rest of this post might have more meaning:

I was in the Hammersmith branch of ‘Tiger’, seeing to some functional gift buying (and it doesn’t get much more functional than prevaricating over decorative paper napkins in an urban mall shop in February)…

…when Elvis came piping in over the store sound-system, with non-functional things on his mind.

‘FFS,’ I thought crassly but accurately, in an expressive sense. ‘I spend 90% of my life trying to side-step the yawning chasm of my existential angst and now I can’t buy a bloody napkin without being pushed in.’

Back home, mission accomplished, I returned voluntarily to hand-wringing and put Elvis on the Youtube duke box.

As I revisited cavernous rooms of rank sentimentalism, I came to realise that Rufus had stopped re-purposing a tissue box as a receptacle for matchbox toys in order to listen to the ‘mugats’ and was being held quite in its thrall.

Moments later, reaching up, he said, ‘Ugg’ (a request for an embrace, not an outdoor slipper boot); I happily complied and we sort of square-danced around the study to The King.

Lo and behold, ‘Can’t Help Falling In Love’ was no longer the background to the ‘stories’ of my life- the soundtrack to my emotional movie.

It was the song as Rufus was hearing it, in his childish way: pure; beautiful; without narrative. It was moving him to soft kisses which, for a child, is Love.

So I listened to it one more time- without the noise of my histories, my projections, my over-packed hormonal baggage- as if Elvis was just singing it, rather than singing it with the express intention of messing with my equilibrium.

Try it. It’s amazing. It’s a liberation.

Now imagine doing this with every thing.

Imagine engaging with your day in a way that minimizes major themes and maximizes minute experiences as they are unfolding; imagine frying an egg for breakfast and not shell-covered disillusionment; imagine eating lunch without the memory of your mistakes or the judgment of your fear; imagine receiving, not creating people; imagine creating yourself in the act of being.

Last night I went to the Royal Festival Hall to listen to the incessant jabbering of my stream-of-semi-consciousness against a background of the Philharmonia Orchestra playing Berlioz’s ‘Symphonie Fantastique’ : look at the people- two and half thousand of them- all sitting in this one box, nobody coughing, everybody successfully containing themselves; visualise body surfing over the silver-haired appreciators or shouting out a manifesto that is filmed by a co-conspirator and broadcast on youtube; imagine this happening in venues all over London, executed in synchronicity; salivate over the publicity but conclude that everybody would hate whatever you had to say coz you said it rudely in the middle of their night out so you would have shot your own campaign in the foot; look at the musicians, having individually fought their way through streets of crime on an innocent mission, smugly lugging their instruments, converging on this time and place, enjoying their black clothes and dangly earrings and smart socks, knowing the notes, feeling confident they won’t do a bum one; think of all the flacid cocks in the slacks of the men and the frozen shepherd pie portions in the freezers of the pea-green and coral-sweatered women; wonder when a Royal last sat in their box in their eponymous Hall; wonder if they felt like Glenn Close in Dangerous Liaisons, when everyone turns to look at her with scorn; wonder if there is an energy in that empty box and if there is what it feels like; look at the conductor, with a body language all his own, the jerks and smooth trajectory of his arms; imagine him putting on his shirt, his fears, his investments for retirement; wonder what his wife thinks of him, what she’s doing now; marvel that people can be bothered to go out, that old people aren’t scared of Embankment tube, that some people aren’t old at all but young and dismissive of X-factor; acknowledge my out-dated ageism; consider the difference between the way classical and popular music is engaged with- one private and serious-minded, one provocative and vivid; think of the irony of quiet souls absorbing the creation of a composer brimful of opium, elsewhere e’d-up dancers freaking out to the tunes of a sober club d.j; question if classical composers used samples of each other’s music; imagine them writing it in cliched, candle-lit rooms, with leeches on their backs; imagine this performance sampling contemporary songs hidden in the symphony; wonder if this might be funny for an ad or a comedy; consider branches of this idea- rap artists in symphony seats, behaving themselves, a symphony of conductors directing a sole musician on the podium; picture Mark Zuckerberg; wonder if the violinists enjoy the plucking bits; hear a theme in the music that’s beautiful, that makes sense; feel proud of myself that I can enjoy the culture of intellects; realise I’m not concentrating; feel shallow; notice a swell in the music; feel moved; allow emotions; well up with tears about Sad Things; want some more wine; contemplate carnal pleasures in Festival bathrooms; try to come up with something interesting to think about the Central Bar Area; make a game-plan for returning chewing gum quietly to its wrapper; consider if other people would find it distasteful if I tapped notes into my phone, how much hatred they would summon, even if I held the handset low, because clearly I was a heathen and had no manners and was a bit common; worry about my new tooth and if it will continue to feel it’s not welcome, like my mouth is The Other; wonder if the person behind me has an opinion about the back of my head; try to make one about the person’s in front of me; ask if the people in the black and white boxes have season tickets, if they are thinking other things, if they are leaning forward because they’re so engrossed or because their seats encourage them to do so, either by the way they are designed or by the way they are overlooked or by both but not necessarily in equal measures, even if you could quantify such a thing and whether there would be any advantage in doing this anyway; and why we’re all benefiting from looking at musicians when its the sounds they are creating by instructing their arms to make movements, that we want to hear; feel happy for the musicians that they haven’t lost their arms; wonder if they hate the lead violinist or if they want him and who’s winking at whom over a Rich Tea biscuit after the performance; wonder if the violinist thinks he’s special, wants extra biscuits, wants his tea just so; wish I could see his features; remember my lost specs are why I can’t; enjoy looking at the harps, seeing angels at them; run through mental archives of Elbow playing here, so much admiration in the space, for the lead singer, the clear acoustic quality of his voice; start to clap and hear someone do that appreciative shouting thing at the end and feel glad to be a part of that whoop.

I was plugged into the video of Mariah’s song ‘Obsessed’ at the gym this morning and I experienced fear.

The way she starts the song with the words ‘I was, like, why are you so obsessed with me?’ struck me as, like, a deliberately offensive way to, like, start a song.

Then the visual throwback of her walking past an L.A. hotel carrying loads of shopping bags and wearing a gold necklace saying the word, ‘Angel’ made my skin tingle in a different way to the dumb bells.

But coming in at number one most creepy thing to have been let out of the creative industry’s doors in a long time was her cameo appearances as the obsessed stalker himself. (The knowing smile at the end indicating that she is, like, totally cool with any self-obsessed implications.)

Yes, dear reader, what might have elicited a smug little ‘cheeky twist’ chortle from the music producers at an initial meeting has been carried through to its breathtakingly unnerving conclusion.

Mariah Carey as an Eminem chauffeur/hoodie/male stylist parody, with a hairdryer and a fluffy goatee beard, doing blokey hip-hop moves while fawning over her snakeskin-body-hugger-wench self made me slam the emergency ‘STOP’ button on the treadmill.

Stay in on Hallowe’en and pop her on the DVD player with lights dimmed.

Now the second verse and – what a treat!- a key change so soon. Normally you have to wait until the end of a song for that.

Plus- Double Fantastic!- Michael’s splitting himself into two, high and low.

She can’t doubt his feelings now, with the oral pincer bonanza.

‘More precious than any pearl’

Gosh, I’d love to be more precious than that. Will I be one day? Not to any of the boys at the school dances; they wouldn’t understand.

Now she’s asking if he loves her and he says it out loud: ‘Endlessly’.

ENDLESSLY.

Oh, Michael, I think I love you like that. Your voice isn’t very masculine but that’s O.K., that’s Motown.

‘You kiss me then,

Ooh, the world,

You do this to me’

Michael, I’m here! On the top bunk in Kirkby Lonsdale.

I’m wearing my froggy nightie but I’ll be a woman soon.

I’ve already been sick on alcohol!

And she’s still changing his world and now he’s changing hers back and when he tells her he loves her this time the notes aren’t descending, they’re rising, and he can’t suppress it! Out to the hot night sky! He’s mad for the girl!

‘All the time!’

And now multiple Michaels. All over the place. You can’t stop them.

Singing ‘Girl’and‘I want you baby’and all the loving stuff.

She must be thrilled. I am and he’s not even talking to me…

Press rewind. All over again. Maybe 3 more times.

I’m there, I’m there.

Batteries sound drunk. Press pause.

Listen to see if my sexually-precocious room-mates have finished talking about doing unspeakable things to boys.